Getting There
I attend a lot of outdoor apparel industry events. Trade shows, expos, brand gatherings. I know those spaces well. I have a lot of friends and colleagues in that world, and I genuinely love those connections.
But this was different and familiar from the moment I arrived.
The Wasatch Mountain Film Festival is an outdoor film festival, not a gear show. The people filling those spaces weren't comparing product specs or talking about distribution. They were filmmakers and storytellers and mountain people who had gone out into the world, pointed a camera at something that mattered to them, and figured out how to bring it back.
Walking in, I immediately noticed the intense level of passion in the room. People were present. They were there because they cared about the work. That energy is hard to miss, and it was palpable there.
The team behind the festival had clearly put so much into curating the experience. It showed in the way the event day was organized, in the transitions between films, in the way space was made for viewing and conversation. You could feel the care in it. Events like that take a lot of work. It takes people who genuinely want the experience to be good, and that was evident all festival long.
Being in a Room Full of Filmmakers
One of the things I love most about the outdoor apparel industry is that underneath the commerce, there's a real community. People support each other, share knowledge, celebrate each other's wins. We're all building something we believe in, in a space we love, and that creates a kind of bond.
I saw the exact same thing in that space, but in a world I hadn't been part of before.
The filmmakers all knew each other. There were inside jokes and long hugs and that easy conversation that only happens between people who have been in the trenches together, who, I imagine have stayed up too late editing, who have hauled gear somewhere cold and remote and kept going because the shot was worth it. It was familiar to me because I recognize that feeling. It lives in our corner of the outdoor industry too, with my peers.
Getting to reconnect in person with Shandi, Sean, Chris and the Local Studio team was one of the highlights of the whole experience. These are the people who made the film about me and Alpine Fit, and seeing them in their element, surrounded by their peers, was so special. Watching Shandi work her magical people skills, Chris doing his thing with the sound, and Sean light up chatting with folks that share the passion for the craft they care so much about reminded me why I trusted them with our story in the first place.
There's something that happens when you work with people who genuinely care about what they're doing. It shows up in the work. You can feel it. And seeing them celebrated by their community just confirmed what I already knew.
Watching the Work
I sat in that screening room and watched films made by people who had something they needed to say. That's a very specific feeling. It's different from watching something made to be commercially successful, or made to go viral, or made to check a box. These were films made because someone had the passion to make them.
Some were funny. Some were quiet and contemplative. More than one of them left me a little teary-eyed. I don't want to oversell it, but there's something that happens when a room full of people watches something together that genuinely moved someone to make it. You feel the stakes of the person’s real life. You feel the care.
And then getting to talk to the people behind those films afterward was its own thing entirely. Everyone I met was warm and generous and genuinely interested in each other's work. People shared kind words about our film that I didn't take lightly. When someone who does this work, who understands how hard it is, takes a moment to tell you that something landed, that has a lot of weight. I was genuinely touched to be a part of this experience.
We also contributed some Alpine Fit door prizes that went out to audience members after our film block of female filmmakers. Watching people react when their name was called and seeing those pieces go home with people who had just spent the afternoon immersed in female outdoor storytelling felt great. It felt like the right room for Alpine Fit to show up in.
One film, Arctic Alchemy, featured some familiar faces from our community in Alaska. Roman Dial, Russel Wong, and a ton of cameos of Alpine Fit gear! Russel is a friend of Alpine Fit and real athlete model of our men's Treeline Long Sleeve.
What I'm Still Thinking About
I've been building Alpine Fit for years now. And like anyone building something from the ground up, there are moments where you're so deep in the day-to-day that you don’t always think about the thread that ties back to why you started. Shipping logistics, inventory decisions, content calendars. It's a lot of very unglamorous work behind the scenes that adds up slowly and invisibly.
Events like this remind me of the thread.
Alpine Fit exists because I believe that the people who move through the outdoors with intention, who go on the ordinary adventures and the extraordinary ones, deserve gear that's been thought about carefully. Not just gear that performs, but gear that fits into a real life. Gear you don't have to think about because it just works.
Sitting in that room full of people who had poured themselves into telling stories about the outdoors, I felt that connection again. These are our people. The filmmakers and the audience members and the festival organizers and everyone in between. People who go outside and care about it.
I came home with my motivation high. There's so much ahead for Alpine Fit. New products in the pipeline, stories we haven't told yet, community we're still building. Experiences like that remind me that the foundation we've already laid is real. And that there are people out there who see it and feel it too.
That's not a small thing. That's everything, actually.
Thank You
To the entire Wasatch Mountain Film Festival team: what you built was beautiful. The care you put into every detail was visible and felt. Thank you for including us and for creating a space where this kind of storytelling gets the room it deserves.
To Shandi, Sean, Chris and the Local Studio crew: thank you for being you. I'm so glad to have this opportunity and glad I got to be in that room with you.
To everyone I met that evening who said kind things about our film and our brand: you have no idea how much it means. Or maybe you do, because you're building things too.
And to all of you reading this, wherever you are, who have been following along and cheering for Alpine Fit from a distance: you are the reason this all feels worth it. The messages, the tags, the reviews, the repeat orders. The fact that you keep coming back. I notice all of it, and I'm more grateful than I know how to say.
We're just getting started.
With so much love and appreciation for everyone in our community, thank you,
Jen Loofbourrow, Founder/Owner @ Alpine Fit
P.S. If you are wondering what the film I was in was about, it was a delightful snapshot in time of the very special foundational times of Alpine Fit and the life of a woman building an outdoor brand with heart, balancing it all. Filmed on location in Anchorage Alaska at my home, the Alpine Fit workshop and on the top of a mountain backcountry skiing with my dog Willow. Follow along for other viewing opportunities and I'll keep you up-to-date.
